The house was full of strange people…

Well, actually they were intellectually disabled. And to tell the truth there were just four of them. But when we came home for lunch after visiting on Sunday, there they were, with their carers, and it felt like quite a crowd. There’s a group home up the road, and one of our team works there. We’d had a visit from one of the residents before, but this time, the whole house came! Elise and another visitor did a great job showing them hospitality until the team got back from visiting. Then they all stayed for lunch. Lucky we had a big pork roast in the oven!

The irony is, I’d told the team just that morning, ‘Last Sunday we had all those visitors all over the place, don’t get to expect that, it was a one-off, it won’t happen today.’ And then…there they were.

What a joy to meet these dear people that God loves so much.

At 2 we said goodbye to our new friends, and the team went up to St Pauls to rehearse our Easter story-telling around the property.

Another joy was to see what a good job Mike did leading our gathering. That man has hidden strengths! We continued our series in Luke’s gospel, seeing Jesus stand with sinful mankind in baptism, and receive God’s praise and approval on our behalf: ‘You are my beloved son, I very pleased with you.’ Our only hope for approval and intimacy with God is in Jesus.